


Betrayal?

by jacquelee



Series: Star Trek Voyager Without White Guys [4]
Category: Star Trek: Voyager
Genre: Community: allthingsfandom, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-14
Updated: 2016-03-14
Packaged: 2018-05-26 18:04:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,758
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6249979
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jacquelee/pseuds/jacquelee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Seven of Nine is saved from the Borg by Voyager. This leaves Janeway with the question of going against the wishes the Borg have instilled in Seven and doing what she knows is right to get Seven's individuality back or leaving her to go back to her abusers. She gets help with that decision from the Chief Medical Officer who draws an unsuspected comparison.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Betrayal?

**Author's Note:**

> DISCLAIMER: I am white. As such, I usually stay away from topics such as African American slavery in comparison to other kinds of slavery, but I wrote this character into Voyager and it would be impossible for me not to go where I went. I tried to put as little original content as possible, retelling the actual life of a black person and quoting her, amplifying her voice, instead of putting my own.  
> I hope that means that this is not harmful but rather me trying to talk about a subject that is necessary to talk about but that gets omitted far too often. But my white perspective still means I can only try and if I did it in a way that is still harmful, please tell me and I will change it. 
> 
> Written for a challenge at [allthingsfandom](http://allthingsfandom.livejournal.com) for the bingo prompt Betrayal.

Looking at the person lying convulsing on the floor, trying to hold her, to do something, anything, calling out for help, Janeway suddenly had doubts. 

Coming here into the brig, her mind had been perfectly made up. She would give Seven of Nine the freedom she deserved, she would give her her individuality back, she would remind her of the little girl she had once been and would get through to her despite the decades of mind control she had endured from the Borg. 

Despite what Seven of Nine had said herself, despite her saying that separating her from the Borg would kill her, that the Captain forcing her to regain her individuality made her no less evil than the Borg themselves, Janeway had still believed that she was doing the right thing. 

Now she didn't know anymore. What if what she was doing was indeed killing Seven of Nine instead of saving her? Right now, it sure looked like that. What if she was the same as the Borg? Was she? She wanted to give Seven of Nine the freedom back that she had lost when she had been assimilated, not take freedom away from her and not killing her in the process. 

It had seemed for a moment that she was getting through to her, that showing her the picture of the girl she once was, asking her questions about that girl had actually broken through the barrier the Borg had built in her. When she had broken down completely, she had tried to lash out at Janeway and then collapsed on the floor, convulsing. 

It felt like a long time had passed since then but in reality it was just a few seconds. She heard the security officer who guarded the brig calling sickbay and turned to her. 

"Have them beam the two of us directly to sickbay." 

"Aye, Captain." 

The officer made the arrangements and a few seconds later Janeway saw the transporter flash and then the surroundings of sickbay. 

Both Commander Mokeme and Lieutenant Jones came immediately to take care of Seven of Nine. Together they put her on a biobed and stabilized her. Janeway stood aside, knowing there was nothing she could do. 

Left with her thoughts, she returned to that question in her head. Was she actually betraying Seven as she had been accused or was she saving her? Was what she was doing right or wrong? It had felt so clear cut, so obviously right, but now, looking at the person on the biobed, seeing the consequences of her attempts, it wasn't that obvious any more. 

Or was it? Wasn't death still preferable to a life without individuality, without freedom? No matter if the person in question had been forced to believe that a life like that was the only way to live and now rallied against anyone who said otherwise? 

She still believed that, but having held Seven of Nine's frail body in her arms, having seen her cry and scream, having seen her in agony took a toll on her. What if she made the wrong decision? What if it was impossible to restore Seven of Nine's individuality and all she was doing was condemning her to death? Would that still be saving her? 

Yes. Yes it would. Or at least that was what every part of her told her. Better dead than living as a Borg. Better dead than living without freedom, without individuality. She had to believe that. It was everything she had ever stood for. And yet…

After a while, Doctor Mokeme came to inform her of Seven of Nine's status. 

"It appears that we ran into another obstacle. While we have removed most of the Borg technology and she is now able to survive without it, apparently there was something left that shut down her cortical node for unknown reasons. 

We stabilized her now but without knowing what it was that caused the shut down, we don't know how to study this so that we can device a method of repairing the cortical node and countering this. What exactly happened before you got her here? Did she suffer any injuries? Anything?" 

Janeway frowned and tried to recall exactly what had happened.

"No injuries. We were talking. About her past, about her life. I showed her a picture of her as a child from our database. I asked her questions about herself. If she had siblings or friends. Where she went to school. What her favorite color was. That sort of thing. Then she said all of this was irrelevant, slapped the padd out of my hand, and broke down.

I told her that her life, her unique identity had been stolen from her and that she could get it back but she said she didn't want that life, that I was forcing that identity on her. I said it is who she is and that she shouldn't resist it. Then she yelled and charged at me but broke down immediately on the floor in convulsions." 

"Hm. So, was it that she remembered something? That she felt something?"

"But I would say she had felt a lot of emotions while she was here on board. Why didn't this happen earlier?" 

"I don't know enough about this but a valid theory would be that while emotions in itself cannot be what was triggering the shutdown, possibly it was the memories of her former life and her seeing, even for one moment, the possibility of getting it back and having feelings about that. Maybe it is a failsafe device built into the cortical node itself. 

I will look into that. It might well be that we will never completely understand it, seeing the Borg's level of technology, but it stands to reason that it is by design, a mechanism installed in drones to keep them from regaining individuality. 

Makes sense, really, since feeling emotions about their former lives would be a key step on their way to renewed individuality. We will study this angle and remove whatever caused this reaction from the cortical node. Now that we have a valid theory of what caused it, we can study it further. 

I am optimistic that we will succeed, though it probably will require more brain surgeries than I was planning on doing."

Janeway held up her hand when Mokeme smiled and turned to return to the biobed.

"Doctor. I…" 

She didn't know how to phrase her doubts, how to relate to the Doctor that she was still sure that they were doing the right thing but with even more surgeries required, even more risks, the doubt kept crawling back into her mind. Mokeme seemed to understand what she didn't say. 

"Captain, we are doing the right thing." 

"You are so sure of that?" 

"Yes, I am." 

"How?" 

"Because in a way, this is part of my history. Because being enslaved and not able to decide for yourself is part of my heritage. While my family primarily lives in Nigeria now, I am still a descendant of African American slaves who had been stolen from their homeland and forced to do their master's bidding, think their master's thoughts, to never be free. This is part of my family's history, a vital part. When I became a doctor, I not only vowed to do no harm but also to never let this happen again, no matter to whom and how." 

Janeway looked at her. She wasn't as familiar with this particular dark chapter in her country's history as she should have been. 

"We truly are doing the right thing, even when she might die? Even when she is fighting us every step of the way? Even when doing this would cause her harm in the short run? Even when she says we are betraying her?" 

"Captain, have you ever heard of Harriet Tubman?" 

"No, I haven't." 

"Nearly six hundred years ago, Harriet Tubman dedicated her life to freeing her people, our people, from slavery. She said herself that she ran the underground railroad, the system that smuggled slaves out of the country to freedom, for eight years and never ran a train off the track, never lost a passenger. Meaning she always brought all the slaves she went to save to freedom.

A former slave herself, she took on enormous risk returning for family members, friends and other slaves, smuggling them through a country that wanted her dead. Some of these freed slaves changed their minds midway through their rescue because they had been conditioned so much, abused so much that they couldn't dare going against their masters.

One story in particular has been related, in which a man apparently wanted to go back, thereby putting not only himself and the group but the entire network at risk. It is said that Harriet put a gun to his head and said 'You go on or die'. The entire group made it to freedom after that. 

If she had let him go back, she would not only have condemned him to a life of slavery and possible death, she would have condemned everyone in her group and any future endeavors to save her people. It was impossible for her to allow that.

We rescued Seven of Nine, Annika Hansen, from the collective. Sending her back now wouldn't just put Voyager at a high risk, it also would ensure that she lives out her life without any individuality, without any freedom. 

No, this decision is not a hard one at all. It is easy. Life without freedom is not life. I vowed to do no harm, to preserve life at all cost, but I also vowed to preserve conditions in which that life is livable. If I didn't do both, I would betray both my profession as a doctor and my belief in freedom as the absolute necessity for a living being to actually live. I would betray my family and my people."

For a moment, Janeway just looked at Mokeme, unsure of what to say.

"Thank you, Doctor. Continue." 

Mokeme nodded, smiled slightly and returned to her patient.

For a few more moments, Janeway looked at the body on the biobed, contemplating her decision and what it meant. She wasn't questioning it anymore, now she just thought about what consequences it had for both herself and Seven of Nine and for the entire crew of Voyager. But regardless of that, when she went back to her duties she did so lighter hearted than before. 

Yes, she was doing the right thing.


End file.
